The view from Lake Wentworth, Wolfeboro, NH

Where we are

Lake Wentworth, located in Wolfeboro, NH, is the ninth largest lake in New Hampshire, with a total area of 3037 acres. Surface elevation is, at full lake, 534 feet above sea level.

New Hampshire

The lake is named for John Wentworth, the last colonial governor of New Hampshire. Before the Revolution, the capital of New Hampshire was in Dover, along the seacoast, and the governor had a large mansion on the eastern shore of the lake. The large property was extensively farmed.

When the colonies rose up, Wentworth fled to Nova Scotia, and his property was eventually sold. The house burned to the ground in the early 1800s, and the cellar hole is all that remains today.

Lake Wentworth, which lies entirely within the town of Wolfeboro, is almost four miles long and about two and a half miles wide. It contains more than 20 islands of various sizes, with the largest, Stamp Act, owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy as a wildlife sanctuary. (The origin of the island’s name is lost to history.)

The Seven Sisters is a group of islands in the center of the lake that hosts a few dozen cottages, all without electricity.

The lake is also marked by numerous shoals and and rocks lurking just below the surface. The major ones are marked with buoys maintained by the New Hampshire Marine Patrol.

At its western end, Lake Wentworth empties, via a channel of the Smith River, into Crescent Lake, which itself follows the Smith River over a dam and into Back Bay, a small backwater of Lake Winnipesaukee. The drop to the bigger lake is about 30 feet.

The view to the south is dominated by Copplecrown Mountain (seen in the header image of this site). To the north, Mount Shaw in the Ossipee Mountains ring dike and Mount Chocorua, in the foothills of the White Mountains, dominate the scenery. On a very clear day, it is said that Mount Washington is visible. To the east, a series of low hills corral the lake.

Wentworth has almost 11 miles of shoreline. Moose Point lies along the northwest shore, known locally as Hersey Shore.